Getting Acquainted
by Sevenstars
Summary: Just how did Daisy know enough of what Jess was capable of doing as to "faint" and give him his chance in Jubilee? A little vignette to explain it.


**Getting Acquainted**

 _by Sevenstars_

SUMMARY: After things settle down in the aftermath of "Ladies' Day," it becomes evident that there are still adjustments to be made at Sherman Ranch.

This is a sort of companion piece to "Settling In," in which I told the story of Jess's first weeks in his new home; I figured Daisy deserved something of the same courtesy. I also got to thinking, how was she able (in the very next episode!) to adjust so quickly to the situation—and the possibility of Jess being able to use his skills to get them out of it—when their stage was diverted to Jubilee? _Somebody_ must have told her just what he's capable of…

Thanks for the quick beta to Katy (she did the sequel too… please read in order!).

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Jess pushed his chair back with a look of sated pleasure on his angular face. "Ma'am," he said, "that was plumb larrupin'. I ain't had so good a meal in this place in—more'n a year, I reckon. Hardcase here's got his good points, but he sure ain't no cook."

"Just because _you_ had to learn to wrangle a frying pan, workin' on the range and drifting for all those years—" Slim began, his tone half teasing, half weary.

"I'm glad you liked it," Daisy quickly put in. "I could have done better, but—I hate to say this, I'm afraid your grocery stock is a bit limited…"

Diverted, Slim refocused his attention. "I guess it is. We haven't had much call for fancy cooking, the two of us alone, and Mike—well, Mike's like most boys his age, he'll eat anything that doesn't bite him first. But we'll go into Laramie first thing Saturday and you can get stocked up; the general store carries a pretty fair selection. And if you want fresh vegetables, we have a working relationship with some of the homesteaders. I'll introduce you around and you can find out which of the women have what you need. Then you tell me, and I'll talk to their husbands about makin' a trade. We used to have a truck patch, but with everything else we have to do, the stock and the stages, we had to give it up—there was just no time to look after it." _Not without Jonesy and_ _Andy to take charge of it,_ he thought privately.

Daisy had found the half antelope carcass they'd hung up in the cellar three days ago, well wrapped in canvas, and divining by its size that it couldn't possibly be a cow, had guessed that the best way to deal with its small, dark, racy steaks was to fry them and serve them up with pan gravy. She'd found the potato bin and the shelf of commercial canned goods—the ones they kept in stock for emergencies—but apparently not the preserve closet with what was left of last year's swaps (well, after all, it was tucked away in the darkest back corner; _I'll have to show it to her, first thing tomorrow,_ Slim decided), and making, as she'd obviously thought, a virtue of necessity, she'd opened a can of corn and seasoned it with butter, as she would have done if it had been green from the ear, scalloped the tomatoes, fluffed and browned the potatoes, and creamed a dish of onions. She'd located the pot of beans he'd put to soak that morning and dressed them up with dumplings, but she hadn't discovered the sourdough keg; instead she'd found what was left of the yeast and made a pan of piping-hot buttered yeast rolls. She hadn't had time for piecrust, but she'd managed a pair of cobblers, one canned peach, the other canned cherry, and a baked bread-pudding with raisins in it. Being that none of them had had a bite since breakfast, with everything that had been going on, she'd correctly figured that she had to make one meal (supper) do for two (supper and midday dinner). It had been, on the whole, a great success; Jess had eaten two helpings of everything and three of some—Slim thought his appetite had rather astonished her—and Mike hadn't been far behind him.

"I best work off some of this grub," said Jess, "or I won't be able to sleep. Got most of the barn work still to do—didn't have time for nothin' but to milk… and you need to see to your critters, Tiger; wanta come help?"

"You bet!" Mike agreed, always ready to "tag along" with either of his now-official guardians. Jess stood, scooped him up with an arm around his waist, and carried him, giggling, out the kitchen door.

Slim watched them go, smiling softly, then pushed his own chair back. "I'll help you with the dishes, Miss Daisy. I notice you seem to've figured out where we keep everything…"

"It wasn't hard," she said. "It's not a big kitchen—which isn't meant as a criticism. You have a lovely set of dishes," she added.

"Staffordshire," Slim agreed. "Ma's oldest sister and her husband gave it to her as a wedding present. She was always real proud of it. Let me just go out and pump a bucket full so you can start washin' up…"

"May I ask you a question first?" Daisy was looking puzzled. "What was that Jess called you?"

"Huh?" Slim leafed back through his immediate memory, trying to figure out what she meant. "I'm sorry, Miss Daisy, I don't exactly know what you're thinkin' of."

She frowned in thought. "It sounded like... hard cake?"

Slim grinned. "Oh, _hardcase!"_ he corrected her. "That's just a nickname he uses for me, sometimes. It's kind of a joke between us; it's a word that's used instead of 'outlaw.' "

"But you're not an outlaw," Daisy protested. "You own this ranch."

"Well, that's part of the joke, you see," Slim explained. "When he first came here, he thought I was about the most stiff-necked, righteous person he'd ever run into. We had kind of a rough time, in the beginning, gettin' used to each other. But, in a way, the name's not altogether off base. It has another meaning too—a tough man who's best not messed with."

"Have you been together a long time?" she asked.

"Two years now, and a bit," he said. "Sometimes it seems like he's been here forever, and sometimes I wonder how I ever got along without him."

"You're very much attached," she said wisely. "I could—sense it, somehow, almost as soon as I met you. I half thought you were brothers at first. I told Judge Henry you were as close as if that was true."

Slim tilted his head. "Is that why he gave his approval for us to take Mike? We wouldn't have gone through all the legal stuff, but the boy's got property, eleven-hundred-odd dollars his folks had saved up, and a three-year-old Missouri fox-trotting gelding his father traded work for."

"Heavens," said Daisy, "I had no idea he had an estate. He ought to be able to get a good start in life, with that."

"Now that we've got his status settled, I'll set up a trust account at the bank when we go in," Slim agreed. "We told him about the money, but I'm not sure he really took it all in—it's a big figure for a boy his age to get his mind around." He hesitated a moment. "You might better know… he gets nightmares sometimes. For now he's in the bunkroom with us, for just that reason, but if we ever have to be away... you'll have to be prepared for it. He—it's connected to how he came to us. His parents…" He gave her a quick sketch of the circumstances of their deaths, of how Kami's family had found Mike and how Jess had gone looking for the Williamses' wagon and found the money and the horse.

"That poor child," she said in a hushed voice. "What a terrible thing for someone so young to go through."

"We try not to remind him of it," Slim said. "His own mind does that often enough. He knows that if he ever wants to talk about them, or about what he saw that night, he can come to us. I've got a kid brother—Andy—he's fourteen, at school in St. Louis—I kind of learned on the job how to deal with boys; you have to give them space. Like men… they don't want to seem needy, I guess."

"Speaking of need," Daisy began, rather tentatively, "I know we settled how much you intend to pay me—and I must say I think it's a very generous figure—"

"You'll earn it," Slim assured her with a grin, "with the three of us to take care of."

"I'm sure I will, but that wasn't what I had in mind. You see, you included board and room, but… you haven't told me where I'm to sleep."

Slim looked blank for an instant. "Good Lord, don't tell me I didn't— I guess I didn't, at that. There's been so much goin' on around here… I'm sorry, Miz Cooper, it's not usually so chaotic on this place. Jess and I mostly have things under better control…"

To his surprise, she laughed. "I think you can be forgiven, Mr. Sherman. I don't believe I ever went through such a day in my life, and I've got a good many years on you!"

"Slim," he said automatically. "Everybody calls me Slim." He thought for a moment. "Deever and Sally are in the spare room, at least till he gets on his feet; I can't put you in there…" A hesitation, and then: "You won't mind having my parents' old room, will you? It's the only place left."

"Not if they don't mind, but where…?" she began.

"I said their _old_ room," he reminded her. "They're up on the hill, both of them. Pa was killed in '63, and Ma died five years later. I've kept the room like it was… stripped the bed was all… might need some sweepin' out…"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think. I'd be honored if you'd let me have your parents' room, Mr.—I mean Slim."

"This way, then." He led her across the big room to the door that centered the back wall. "Pa talked about another room, but we never got around to it… there's a storeroom on the other side, mostly we use it for extra wood and water barrels in the winter…" A slightly musty, stuffy smell greeted them as he opened the door. Daisy paused on the threshold, looking at the boxlike room with the west-facing window directly opposite, an ornamental brass double bed dating from the late '40's halfway between, across from it a Biedermeier country wardrobe with a two-drawer base and two narrow doors with wide stiles above, below, and flanking, at the foot a grain-painted blanket chest, and bracketing the door a painted and grained pine washstand and a three-drawer chest for small items of clothing like socks and underwear. "I sweep it out every so often, you won't find any spiders…" He eyed her sidewise, wondering just what she'd come from—they'd never really gotten around to asking—and what she thought of all this.

She stepped into the room and looked around appraisingly, tested the mattress with an open palm, opened the wardrobe door to appraise the available space. "It's rather plain," she admitted, "but I think it will do nicely. I'll need some sheets, and a blanket…"

"There are plenty in the chest, just help yourself," Slim told her. "Though you're likely to want at least one of the quilts—nights up here can get chilly even in August. We're pretty close to 4500 feet above sea level, you know. Around this season you can count on it getting down into the low forties by dawn. As for the plain, Ma had some pictures, curtains, things like that, I didn't want those to fade so I put 'em away in the attic… I can bring 'em down tomorrow. Let me open that window so the place airs out, and get your luggage in here, then you can start getting settled…"

"I do have some things that I took out of my house back East," she said. "Dishes, quilts, books, pictures, garden seeds… some of it is in my trunk, but there was some I left in Denver… I wanted to wait and send for it after I had some idea of where I'd be living and whether I'd need anything else. I expected there'd be rooms above the store, or behind it, perhaps…"

Slim's features tightened. "I'd like to get my hands on whoever sold you that bill of goods. And Jess hasn't said so, but I think if _he_ ever does, the man will be lucky if all he gets off with is a couple of broken legs." Again he hesitated. "About your things… we can send a telegram from Laramie and make the arrangements. I'll advance you the money to have them freighted up. I'm thinkin', though…" His voice trailed off; he glanced back over his shoulder toward the door and the yard and barn beyond. "Would you come in the sitting room for a few minutes, Miss Daisy? There's somethin' I maybe should have told you earlier—I'd better get it said before you get any further settled…"

She looked puzzled, but allowed herself to be shepherded out of the bedroom and seated in the second rocker, the one that wasn't Jess's. Slim put his foot up on the hearth shelf and rested his forearm on his raised knee, fingers locked together. "I know you're from back East somewhere…" he began slowly.

"Coatesville, Pennsylvania. It's in Chester County—around two thousand people, at the last census. It used to be two villages, Midway and Bridge-Town; they merged about five years ago. It's twenty-three miles by road from the county seat at West Chester; my husband went there often on business, and sometimes I'd go with him."

"Have you ever been West before?" he pursued.

"No," she admitted, "not this far, at least. I have relatives from Delaware and Maryland out to Ohio, and my husband took me to St. Louis once…"

"How'd you come out? It can't have been by way of Cheyenne or you'd been through here yesterday—we get the connecting stage to Laramie…"

"No, I took the train from Philadelphia to St. Louis, then the riverboat to Atchison, and then the train again to Denver, and the coach from there. That was how Lloyd—my husband—had been told we'd have to go."

"Probably to keep you from findin' out the truth any sooner than you had to," Slim muttered. "As long as you were ticketed to Laramie, they wouldn't even have guessed the truth in Denver—and the Overland office there knows me. Whoever that no-good was, he had to have some familiarity with this country or he'd never have lit on my name. That would be the AT&SF you were on, then. You'd have gone through at least a couple of cowtowns… Newton, Dodge City…"

"Yes," she agreed, "it was quite fascinating. My son—" her voice hitched, just a moment— "when he was young used to love yellowback tales of the West… scouts and trappers, mining camps, Texas cowboys… but I had never seen any real Westerners until I began passing through Kansas. Some cowboys got on the train at Topeka—I think by what I overheard them say that they must have been on their way home…"

"Might've just finished a drive," Slim mused. "If you start early enough, you can get a herd of longhorns up from Texas by June—even earlier if you overwinter in the Nations. They probably figured to ride the cars as far as Dodge and then follow the Western Trail on home. That way they could stop and eat at any trail camp they came to, or even live off the land a little." He paused, trying to decide how best to explain what he knew she'd have to know. "You already know we're not related, the three of us. Mike's from Parke County, Indiana, though from what he's told us he wasn't quite five when his parents left there. I was born in Hancock County, Illinois, about six miles out of Carthage. And Jess… he's a Texan, like those cowboys you saw probably were." He took a careful breath. "I'm not sure just how much you really know about what went on… you were busy with Deever's wound…"

"You mean the shooting?" she guessed, surprising him. She must have read his expression, because she added, "As you said, I passed through Newton and Dodge City, not to speak of Pueblo, which I was given to understand was the center of a large cattle-raising community. And the stage went by way of Fort Lupton, which seems to be another."

"It is. John Iliff's got a spread outside the town—I've heard he owns more than half a dozen, strung out along the North Platte, and controls an unfenced range seventy-five miles by two hundred. So… you know gunfire when you hear it? You heard some on your way here?"

"Several times," she agreed. "The conductor at Dodge City said the cowboys were 'whooping it up.' "

"They do that, at the end of a drive," he agreed. "Didn't it occur to you to wonder why there'd _be_ shooting? Here, I mean?"

"I was a bit busy, as you pointed out," said she serenely, "and I was sure you'd let me know if it was anything for me to be concerned about. I've heard of rattlesnakes…"

Slim's expression took on a grim aspect. "It wasn't one of those, though Jess might differ with me on that. He's got nothing but contempt for bounty hunters—men who track down wanted men for the reward on them. There was one after Deever, and Jess… well, Jess had to shoot him. He… wasn't in need of any help of yours, after that. Jess doesn't usually miss."

For the first time since her fainting spell in the yard, she seemed disconcerted. "You mean that handsome young man with the lovely smile and the Southern gallantry _killed_ a man?"

"He did, and it wasn't the first either. You see, before he came here, Jess was… what we call out here a gunfighter. Which simply means he can get his Colt out of the holster faster than the generality, and shoot straighter too, and like many men who have a skill, he lived by hiring it out. Since he was… well, he left the man who trained him when he was eighteen, but then he got drafted into the Confederate army and wasn't able to go back to his—profession—till a couple of years afterward. Five years, about. He hasn't talked a lot about that time, but I know he's been in quite a few… disputes. Range wars and such. And sometimes… sometimes people from his past find out he's here, and usually that means trouble. The first year or so…" He trailed off in a sigh. "It's gotten better since then, but there've been incidents just the same. You ought to know all this, Miss Daisy. There are times he hears from old friends, and times he gets found by old enemies, or people he owes—and I'm not talking about money. Sometimes his past catches up with him, or he gets homesick for the Big Open—he'd been on his own ten years when I met him, and that's a thing that gets deep in a man; I think maybe it's almost worse for someone who grew up in the Panhandle, which he did—it's a big, lonely country, more even than this around here, by what he's said. Sometimes the itch for freedom is more than he can bear, though he usually manages to find ways to scratch it that don't involve leaving—he takes a job with the line, shotgun guarding, or pins on a badge for Sheriff Corey—you met Mort—or goes off hunting, or I send him on ranch business; I've gotten to where I know him well enough, now, to see it coming on him. He was pretty wild when he first came here, and I should warn you his temper's not on the longest lead you ever saw, though I've never known him to lose it with a woman or a child. He took a long time settling. He's not… I guess you'd say, fully domesticated, even yet." He hesitated. "I'm not sure I've made a lot of sense to someone with your kind of background. He's Southern, he has all that gallantry, he'll never willingly do anything that will put you in danger. Neither will anyone else who has any pride. But accidents happen, and even when they don't… it can be difficult for a woman. This isn't some Eastern town; there's no police officer walkin' a beat. People have to be prepared to defend themselves, their homes, their families. Unless you've spent a lot of time out here, like Lillian McCaskey, our nearest neighbor—"

"Are you offering me a chance to go?" she asked gently.

"I guess I am," he agreed. "And… there's another thing. Out here, it's never polite—and often not wise—to ask a man about his past; if he wants to volunteer the information, that's his business, but to seem to pry into his affairs… it's gotten more than one man killed. Jess… there are—shadows on him that have nothing to do with the way he used to earn his living, or even with the war. Mike's not the only one around here who gets… dreams. Jess's family… was lost to him, in a very bad way, when he was barely fifteen. You mustn't ever ask him about them, Miss Daisy, or about his boyhood. He can't bear it."

"Oh, my," she whispered.

"So you see," Slim concluded, "this really is a new country you've come to. It's a frontier, it's raw, it has its own code of behavior—if anyone comes by around mealtime, for example, they expect as of right to be invited to join us for a meal; if they've come with bad intent, they'll refuse, politely. You're gonna have to do a lot of adjusting, and I know you're not young. If you don't think you can handle it… you mentioned family, relatives… I can finance you if you want to go back to them."

"I have three brothers and two sisters," she said slowly. "I suppose any of them would take me in, and not be _too_ insistent about having 'told me so'… but, as you said, I'm not young. It would be difficult to suddenly be in second place in someone else's home, no matter how I loved them—at least as difficult, in its way, as getting accustomed to a new country, a new way of life. It's been a good hundred years since we had Indian trouble in Pennsylvania, and we _never_ had—what do you call them, 'gunfighters'?—probably because the only weapons our pioneers had were single-shot. It will be very different, I'm sure of it." Then she smiled. "But you'll be here, and Jess. I can't see either of you letting anything happen to me or to Mike."

"We'll do our best, I can promise you that," Slim told her. "I'm just… concerned about how strange it will seem to you, how unlike anything you've ever been used to."

Daisy's tone was thoughtful. "A home, a kitchen, a young boy who needs care… they're the same no matter where one lives, I think. And if Jess is—was—all you say, Mike may not be the only one. It will be a challenge, I don't doubt. And yet… I think I'd rather try it than go back to genteel widowhood—and poverty—in Pennsylvania. Women have their pride too, you know. We don't like to be charity cases, and we like to feel useful."

"That's something you'll be here, absolutely," Slim declared. "You've got no idea what Jess and I went through while we were batchin' it, even before Mike got here…"

She laughed softly. "Oh, I think I have. From what you say, I think you managed a good deal better than many men in Pennsylvania might have done. So, you see, your West has its points of superiority even over our civilized East."

"You're sure of this." His face was very somber, his eyes steady, challenging.

"I'm sure I want to give myself a chance. What would happen now, if I left? Judge Henry might take Mike away from you—and I've seen that you and Jess love him dearly."

"We do," Slim admitted. "I told you about Andy. He adored Jess from the very first moment they met, and Jess returned the favor. In some ways the two of them are closer than Andy and I are. When he left for school, it was… very hard on Jess, harder almost than it was on me; he toughed it out, so Andy wouldn't balk at going, but it hurt him. Having Mike here has brought out the best in him again. He had younger siblings; it's good for him to be able to help raise and guide a kid. And then, Mike himself is only just beginning to realize, I think, that this is his home. I went through that with Jess, and it wasn't easy. If, as you say, Judge Henry were to change his mind… I don't like to think of how rough it would be for a boy who lost his parents the way Mike did."

"So," said Daisy briskly, "I _have_ to stay, don't I? For his sake—and Jess's, and yours." She smiled. "You may not think _you_ need as much care as they do, but taking such a load on your shoulders, all alone, with all the responsibilities you must have, as a rancher and a relay operator… you should have someone to share that with." Her eyes twinkled. "How you've managed not to be netted by some perceptive young woman—either of you—before now I can't imagine!"

Slim chuckled. "Jess says he's too much a Panhandle mustang for any girl to tame."

"He'll find out how wrong he is, one of these days," Daisy predicted. "I'd like to stay here long enough to see that."

He offered his hand. "It's a bargain, then. And if you're ever in doubt about the way things work out here—"

"I know who to come to," she finished, her smaller hand almost vanishing in his.

"Speakin' of which," said Slim, "we've still got to get you settled and those dishes done…"

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 **Note:** Readers curious about Mike's "estate" are directed to my short fic "Unfinished Businss," on this site.


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